Sunday, April 17, 2011

As I sit here blogging to the light of the moon, some people have no home to go to tonight. We are worried about the food in our freezer and they are worried where they will be living. I pray for those people and I hope you will too.

This is my recap of the storms and how fortunate we truly are:

Yesterday Jason and I headed to Walmart and a late lunch with some friends. We had not been informed of such severe weather imminent in the area. We saw the ominous cloud ahead and could only trudge forward. We arrived at Walmart and I opted to stay in the warm, dry car and play phone facebook. He got to the door and the power was already out and he was being summoned rather loudly to "get inside there is a tornado." Jason was not overreacting but when they wouldn't let him out, he decided to call me inside. We spent a half hour browsing around a dark walmart before deciding that they wouldn't reopen. When we went to leave, the traffic situation was HORRIBLE and as soon as we could get our bearings by dodging downed trees, police cars and strewn building pieces, we headed HOME. When we got home we were greeted with NO power. Clear skies and NO power. We were still clueless about the devastation that occurred close to us and throughout the area. We had a cookout planned at my friend Jen's and the party must go on so without power, we prepared our neighborhood cookout. By nightfall we had eaten mac and cheese, garlic bread and a variety of grill meats all from the BBQ grill. A fire was lit and the candles were flickering all over the yard. There was even music from the ipod as we all discussed how lucky we were to have sustained nothing but power loss. The children ran around the house and yard with Army issued chem-lights to mark their presence. We had really made the best of a night without power. People to talk to, music on the stereo and food on the grill. As we headed home from Jen's the reality hit that we didn't have a bed to sleep on and the faithful blowup mattress that I had kept out for us, well, it's electric. As I brushed my teeth to the glow of an emergency chem-light, Jackson used the 120V converter in my car to blow up our bed! Yay, we didn't have to sleep on the floor after all. It was actually quite a peaceful nights sleep. Both phones had to sleep in the car where the only chargers were located. We were still a bit surprised to wake up this morning to NO power. That is when the real problem (for us) set in. NO coffee.We made a futile trip to Food Lion and joined probably 20 other people in line for coffee. We gave up.Mari had invited us over to help eat their food that was quickly spoiling. We dinned like Kings for breakfast made on the grill. We had a spread of eggs, sausage, pancakes, bagels and cream cheese but most of all we had COFFEE!!!We boiled water on the grill, then took it inside and poured it into the coffee filter and drank very strong mildly warm coffee. Oh, my, what people will do for a coffee addiction. But hey, we had coffee. Then we all decided we need to buy a French press, you know, in case of an emergency.You may be asking yourselves where are the photos of this powerless bunch but sadly there are none. The cell phones used most frequently to take photos were all running on small bursts of energy from the car chargers. What energy was consumed was used to update the rest of us on pertinent weather and storm related information all obtained from facebook. Hey, it's reliable, right?Well, it was all we had because none of us could get online, even on our phones.The lack of Internet was harder for some of us than others, but I won't name any names here!

I'm happy to report the power is now restored and I feel caught up on the news and gossip that was missed in our short power hiatus. Please remember there was MUCH devastation caused by the storms that came through our area. We were VERY lucky, others were not. Please pray for the families affected by the storms.

1 comment:

I am stil blown away by the horrible damage. Just devastating! I'm glad your family is safe. There are so many that I am wondering about, and slowly hearing from. After 12 years there, NC is like home...so seeing all this "back home" is so hard. I am continually praying for everyone there.